


Freedom (if you call me brother)

by langsdelijn



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: 31_days, Community: ficbending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tarrlok and Amon, Tarrlok and Noatak, and Tarrlok and the brother who abandoned him, talk. (A retelling/AU of this scene from the finale.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freedom (if you call me brother)

His brother came in, still clad in his revolutionary garb but without the mask now; _good_ , he thought, then everyone in the city must know that their fabled leader was a hypocrite and a bloodbender and a _liar_ , _you lose_ , but all he _said_ was his brother’s name. He hoped that got the point across that this was not a happy reunion.  
  
Apparently, it didn’t, because _Amon_ told him regretfully it was over, as if _he_ cared about the fucking revolution, and if it _was_ Noatak speaking at the moment, he was at a loss as to what, exactly, he thought was supposed to be over between the two of them. He had nothing to say to either Amon or Noatak. He had a thing or two to say to his big brother, but he’d lost _him_ twenty-three years ago, and that was the one aspect of the man he didn’t see standing before him.  
  
He was right, too, because the very next thing he said was a half-hearted apology: it was Noatak saying he was _sorry_ and _Amon_ saying he’d had to do what he did. It was stunning, the sheer audacity of it, of expecting that was _enough_ or even that it would be _believed_.  
  
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not.’  
  
‘I am,’ Noatak insisted, and he hadn’t thought he would have to elaborate on “You’re not sorry,” but maybe he did, if that confused look was anything to go by. Perhaps the contradiction-in-terms of Amon, non-bender revolutionary, as played by Noatak, master waterbender, had gone to his head or something.  
  
‘No,’ he repeated. ‘If you were, you wouldn’t try to justify yourself to me in the same breath as your worthless little apology.’  
  
‘ _You bloodbended me_.’  
  
He blinked. It was true, of course, and he wasn’t particularly proud of that entire episode or anything, but he wasn’t sure how it had anything to do with the conversation; it seemed to mean something, though, so he bit back his counteraccusation that the entire revolution had been built on bloodbending, too, and asked, instead, ‘What?’  
  
‘You bloodbended me,’ Noatak said, again, and for a moment he wondered if his brother knew about everything else he’d done in that time, or if there was a special significance to this one incident. ‘I wouldn’t have done it, but then _you_ tried to bloodbend me.’  
  
‘It wasn’t just you!’  
  
‘You don’t understand,’ said Noatak, patiently, which was true, he didn’t, he had no idea what this was about. ‘You did it to me.’  
  
‘I didn’t know it was you!’  
  
‘It doesn’t matter,’ and of course it mattered, and who was he to say any of this when he’d been bloodbending this entire time, but he said nothing and waited for the explanation to start making sense. ‘I would have just taken you captive with your bending intact—’  
  
‘Oh, _thank you_ ,’ he spat. ‘I’m sure that was very _equal_ to all the other prisoners who weren’t your brother.’  
  
‘ _I saw what it did to you_!’ and he had to bite his tongue not to argue again, that it wasn’t bloodbending but politics, that it had been the threat of Amon and a civil war that had changed him, because this was almost an apology for everything and he wasn’t going to get one any better than this. ‘You defied _him_ , and then you refused to come with me because of _our mother_ who never even _knew_ what was happening to us,’ and that wasn’t _fair_ , how could she know if they’d never told her, it wasn’t _her_ fault, ‘and then even _you_ resorted to bloodbending. I had to do it.’  
  
‘What about you?’ he whispered, quietly.  
  
‘I was too far gone even by the time I ran away,’ he admitted. ‘And I always thought you were the strong one.’  
  
‘You didn’t,’ he said. ‘You _said_ —’  
  
‘I know what I _said_. I said what I _thought_. You refused him, and then you had to live with him after I left. It can’t have been easy. I’m sorry.’  
  
He stayed silent again. He couldn’t think of anything to say and he didn’t trust himself to speak anyway.  
  
‘I was going to ask you to run away with me again,’ Noatak admitted.  
  
‘I wouldn’t have come.’  
  
‘I was thinking of staying to face the consequences this time,’ he continued.  
  
‘If you’d asked now, I would have.’  
  
‘I can’t give you your bending back.’  
  
‘I know,’ he said, even if he doubted that was true. He wasn’t sure there were any limits to his brother’s talents.  
  
‘If we stay, we’ll only be serving father’s sentence in his place.’  
  
‘If we run, are we any better than him?’  
  
‘I’m not leaving you again. It’s your choice.’  
  
He thought about it, but it wasn’t much of a choice. If they stayed, Noatak would lose his bending, too, and they’d spend the rest of their lives rotting in a prison cell somewhere. It would be fair, and just, and all those things, but fairness and justice and prison hadn’t stopped their father, either. If they left, they could try to build another life, one that was free from the legacy of their father and his vengeance and his lessons.  
  
‘I think we’ve both spent all our lives paying for this.’

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written with a [31_days](http://31-days.livejournal.com/) prompt in mind, but I didn't make the deadline. I got inspired by [this](http://ficbending.livejournal.com/1766.html?thread=1794022) prompt on the LoK kink meme instead/as well (where I got the idea that Amon debended Tarrlok after realizing he'd become a bloodbender after all); this fic was sort of an unofficial fill because I was too shy to post it there at first. Also available [here](http://langs-de-lijn.livejournal.com/20417.html) and [here at the kink meme](http://ficbending.livejournal.com/1766.html?thread=1794022#t1882598).
> 
> (Secondary title is a line from "The Story of Isaac" by Leonard Cohen. I did use some variations on lines from the show.)


End file.
